Expected Completion
Spring 2018
Curriculum vitae (PDF)
Major Field
Economic Development
Dissertation Title
Essays on Global Development, Trade, and Finance
Profile
At the heart of my work is an
analysis of the structural features of late development. With a regional focus
on Africa, I also study the history of thought on development and analytically
evaluate policy proposals.
In my research, I draw on the
fields of development studies and international political economy, in addition
to economics. For example, in one of the essays in my dissertation, I develop a
classical-structuralist framework for understanding trade deficits through
empirical investigation of a set of African countries. I find that countries
that are less cost-competitive than their trading partners tend to have trade
deficits and that the exchange rate does not adjust in order to eliminate this
imbalance. To enrich this economic analysis, I draw on the effects of
historical legacies of colonialism and the political economy of trade and
production. In doing so, this essay analyzes the consequences of free trade for
countries that are globally uncompetitive, but also examines why these
countries lack competitiveness to begin with, and why it is so difficult for
them to become globally competitive.
My work has been published in
Review of
Development Economicsand Development and Change.
I have designed and taught
several undergraduate courses at The New School and John Jay College of
Criminal Justice. At The New School’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, I
have served as a Teaching Fellow since 2016 and am currently teaching a course
that I designed on Alternative Approaches
to Economic Development. In this
course, students are presented with a variety of theoretical frameworks for
understanding issues of economic development, in addition to concrete
historical case studies. At John Jay, I most recently taught Global Economic Development and Crime,
an introductory course on economic development.
Beyond the classroom, I am
interested in promoting pluralism in the field of economics. I am a co-founder
and current Advisory Board Member of Rethinking
Economics Norway and coordinator of the INET-funded Economic Development Working Group of the Young Scholar’s
Initiative. I recently co-edited Dependency Theory, which introduces the
title concept to a general audience, and manage a blog that aims to stimulate fruitful
debate on issues of economic development across fields.
If you are interested in
having a conversation about my work, or have additional questions, please feel free
to get in touch. You can also visit my website.
Contact Information